Pumpkin Pie Bites

I've been very excited to try my hand at these mini pumpkin pies ever since I saw them on Pinterest two months ago. They just look so scrumptious! This past weekend I finally got around to purchasing a pumpkin cookie cutter & refrigerated pie dough and got to baking! The original recipe and pin come from the wonderful bakerella website.


original pin from bakerella

I ran into a few minor issues when making this fall treat. The first issue I encountered was fitting the pie dough into the mini cupcake pan. The dough wouldn't fit all the way to the bottom of the pan. I think it was because the cookie cutter I used was too small. I just had to make due with what I had and tried to stretch the dough out a bit. Once the dough was placed in the pan, I brushed some egg white on the the stems.

Next up came the batter which is where I ran into my second issue. The recipe called for sugar, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, eggs, pumpkin, and room temperature cream cheese.

I left my cream cheese out on my counter for about 8 minutes before mixing it up. I learned the hard way that was not long enough to get it to room temperature. As a result, the cream cheese didn't mix very well with the other ingredients. The batter ended up having some white spots/chunks. Also, my batter was much lighter than the photos from bakerella.



At this point I was a bit discouraged and nervous about how these cuties would taste. But I continued on with the recipe and hoped for the best.

The next step was to fill the dough up the top of each little pumpkin.

Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

Once the pumpkin pie bites came out of the oven, I threw the pan in the freezer for 5 minutes to cool it down quickly so I could get the next batch in the oven. Below is my finished product:

Adorable right? And they taste even better then they look! Below are some more of my finished pumpkin pie bites along with the cookie cutter so you can get a feel for the size cookie cutter I used.

The Verdict: Amazing! I sure I will be making these for years to come. Despite my cream cheese not mixing properly, they still tasted delicious and they are the perfect bite size. The best part is that the recipe was fairly easy and quick. I just wish I had two mini cupcake pans to speed up the baking time.

Things to Consider: All in all it was a perfect recipe! You definitely want to avoid my mistake and have your cream cheese room temperature so it mixes properly. Also, it may be easier to just forgo the pumpkin cookie cutter altogether. You can use a round cookie cutter or the bottom of a can and then form your own stem out of extra dough. That way you can be sure your pie dough is the right size for the pan.